Category: Business Lawyer

Testosterone-laden, adrenaline-fueled, besides being possessed of rugged good-looks. His charismatic patina and persona aside, the thirty-something, Iranian-Canadian investor, Sahm Adrangi, is nothing if not an entrepreneur, exceedingly comfortable with risk and the road less traveled, persistent, dogged and ultimately successful. Ascension to the helm of his now renowned company, Kerrisdale Capital Management, was not accomplished with a silver spoon in his mouth, or a velvet path beneath his feet.

Not unlike other maverick money-makers, the thirty-something investing guru began with a single room and a desire to fight and right a wrong as he saw it. His initial target consisted of some scammy Asian companies. Like a twenty-something gamer, Sahm Adrangi leveled a photon-torpedo bolt, (only in this case the bolt was loaded with insight, acumen and instinct,) at the deceitful companies, thereby leveling them and in the process discovering both a stairwell to sucess, as inevitably the larger tycoon-sized fish began to take note of tbis upstart new perch in their pond, and a signature methodology he would come to be noted for; that is the challenging maverick-move of short-selling stocks.

Blossoming from a one-room operation into a 250 million dollar hedge fund, that emerged onto the official world-business stage in July of 2009, the company that began when Sahm Adangi took down some Chinese companies, has since delivered net returns of over one thousand and one hundred percent, more than five times higher than similar returns generated by S&P 500. In the process, Kerrisdale Capital Mangement has made a recognizable world-wide figure of Sahm Adrangi. Still a maverick, today; Sahm Adrangi continuously peruses the niches and tangled out-of-the-way paths that go unnoticed by the teeming herds of safe and sedentary investors. Ultimately, a Sahm Adrangi-directed asset may have a bullish bent, but it’s just as likely to also reflect a foward-thinking business philosophy, centered with an eye to what’s next, because Sahm Adrangi has a decided liking for social media and for tech-related stocks. One thing’s for sure, whatever one comes to expect from Sahm Adrangi, boredom is not among the answers.

Jeremy Goldstein is a very experienced attorney at law in the New York City area. He specializes in corporate compensation. He also writes about compensation practices and how best to manage them from a legal standpoint. One of his recent articles delved into the issues that exist when companies try to establish a sustainable economic environment at their firm. This can lead to a battle between providing employees incentive for their hard work being played against long-term investors who mainly want to just maximize their returns.

One incentive-based program that Jeremy Goldstein has a lot of experience with is using Earnings per Share, also known as EPS, to partially compensate employees. He says that in general this is a positive thing for companies to do because EPS is one of the things that heavily influences what the company’s shares are worth. It’s good for the employees, he says, because they get paid more. It’s also good for the company because it incentives employees to increase the value of the company they work for.

The one big problem though, he says, is that using EPS for employees can result in the executives of the company, particularly the chief executive officer, having far too much power in deciding what metrics the company will use to determine EPS. This can skew things if they try to use EPS to drive share sells. This is something that Jeremy Goldstein calls misleading if not outright illegal but some executives will still try it.

The answer, he says, is that a system must be put in place at companies that will hold executives responsible for what they do in regards to EPS. This will both shareholders and employees and result in long-term growth that is stable in nature. It will also result in share growth that can be both reasonably measured as well as repeatable.

Jeremy Goldstein is the partner of his law firm, Jeremy L. Goldstein & Associates, LLC. He has a boutique law firm that focuses primarily on executive compensation, especially during sensitive situations such as a proposed merger & acquisition transaction.

Over the years, Jeremy Goldstein has been recognized by organizations in the legal industry a number of times. The Chambers USA Guide, for instance, named him as one of the nations top business lawyers as did The Legal 500. He has worked with some of the largest multinational corporations in the world like J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Miller Brewing Company, and SPC Communiations, Inc.